"of areas including: Issues relating to sovereignty, civil and cultural rights, decommissioning of weapons, demilitarisation, justice, and policing were central to the agreement. The agreement was approved by voters across the island of Ireland in two referendums held on 22 May 1998. In Northern Ireland, voters were asked in the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement referendum, 1998 whether they supported the multi-party agreement. In the Republic of Ireland, voters were asked whether they would allow the state to sign the agreement and allow necessary constitutional changes (Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland) to facilitate it. The people of both"
"jurisdictions needed to approve the agreement in order to give effect to it. The BritishIrish Agreement came into force on 2 December 1999 with the help of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the only major political group in Northern Ireland to oppose the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement was made between the British and Irish governments and eight political parties or groupings from Northern Ireland: the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party, the Progressive Unionist Party, the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, the Ulster Democratic Party and"
"There were several unsuccessful attempts to end the Troubles politically, such as the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. In 1998, following a ceasefire by the Provisional IRA and multi-party talks, the Good Friday Agreement was concluded as a treaty between the British and Irish governments, annexing the text agreed in the multi-party talks. The substance of the Agreement (formally referred to as the Belfast Agreement) was later endorsed by referendums in both parts of Ireland. The Agreement restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of power-sharing in a regional Executive drawn from the major parties in a new Northern Ireland"
"been perceived as being invisible with little or no physical infrastructure, due to processes put in place by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement/Belfast Agreement. The Belfast Agreement, signed on the Christian holiday of 'Good Friday' (10 April 1998), has the status of both an international treaty between the UK and the Republic of Ireland (British-Irish Agreement) as well as an agreement of the parties within Northern Ireland (Multi-Party Agreement). Following Brexit, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will become an external EU border. It is theorised that a ""hard"" border may return, with both fewer and"
"part of the negotiations strategy, which saw teams from the British and Irish governments, the UUP, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and representatives of loyalist paramilitary organisations, under the chairmanship of former United States Senator George Mitchell, produce the Belfast Agreement (also called the ""Good Friday Agreement"" as it was signed on Good Friday, 1998). Under the Agreement, structures were created reflecting the Irish and British identities of the people of Ireland, creating a British-Irish Council and a Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly. Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's constitution, which claimed sovereignty over all of Ireland, were reworded, and a"
"that became known as the Good Friday Agreement. It called for the British Parliament to devolve legislative and executive authority of the province to a new Northern Ireland Assembly, whose Executive would include members of both communities. Years of stalemate have followed the agreement, mainly due to the refusal of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), a nationalist paramilitary group, to decommission its weapons for some years and after that the refusal of the Democratic Unionist Party to push the process forward. Mitchell returned to the region and arranged yet another blueprint for a further peace settlement that resulted in"
"Troubles in 1969, the two governments sought to bring the violence to an end. The Sunningdale Agreement of 1973 and the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 were important steps in this process. In 1998, both states signed the Good Friday Agreement and now co-operate closely to find a solution to the region's problems. Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland were amended as part of this agreement, the territorial claim being replaced with a statement of aspiration to unite the people of the island of Ireland. As part of the Good Friday Agreement, the states also ended their dispute"
"In the Good Friday Agreement, most Northern Irish political parties, together with the UK and Irish Governments, agreed upon an ""exclusively peaceful and democratic"" framework for the governance of Northern Ireland and a new set of political institutions for the province. In November 1998, Blair became the first UK Prime Minister to address Dáil Éireann. Blair's first term saw an extensive programme of changes to the constitution. The Human Rights Act was introduced in 1998; a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly were established following referenda held with a majority voting in favour; most hereditary peers were removed from the"
"was agreed with both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Major and Taoiseach John Bruton that Mitchell would chair an international commission on disarmament of paramilitary groups. Mitchell went on to successfully chair the talks that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement. The United States has continued to support the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and has demonstrated its readiness to assist the process in any way. On June 10, 2003, President George W. Bush announced his intention to designate Ambassador Richard N. Haass as the Special Envoy. Haass was an active Envoy. In 2001, within"
"the Good Friday Agreement, which resulted from the talks in 1998, was ""Sunningdale for slow learners"". The Good Friday Agreement led to the setting up of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which was elected in June 1998, with a power-sharing Executive. Mallon was elected as member for Newry and Armagh, and in December 1999 he became Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, serving alongside Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble. Mallon has remained a strong opponent of IRA violence. He has also been in favour of police reform in Northern Ireland. In 2001 Seamus Mallon retired, along with John Hume, from"
"the Good Friday Agreement. Later, it handed over a small amount of weapons to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. The decommissioned weapons were as follows: The destruction of some of the LVF arms were recorded via video. However, since the weapons were decommissioned in mid-1998 the LVF has killed four people. In early 2000, an LVF-UVF feud began and there were a number of tit-for-tat killings. This led the Secretary of State to declare on 12 October 2001 that the government no longer recognised their ceasefire. After its ceasefire, the LVF continued supporting the Orangemen in their protest at"
"(1982–1986) were unsuccessful at restoring devolution. In the absence of devolution and power-sharing, the UK Government and Irish Government formally agreed to co-operate on security, justice and political progress in the Anglo-Irish Agreement, signed on 15 November 1985. More progress was made after the ceasefires by the Provisional IRA in 1994 and 1997. The 1998 Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement), resulted in the creation of a new Northern Ireland Assembly, intended to bring together the two communities (nationalist and unionist) to govern Northern Ireland. Additionally, renewed devolution in Northern Ireland was conditional on co-operation between the"
"Anglo-Irish Agreement, saying that it strengthened the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and he opposed it as he wished to see a united Ireland. In July 1998, Corbyn endorsed the Good Friday Agreement by voting for the Northern Ireland Bill saying: ""We look forward to peace, hope and reconciliation in Ireland in the future"". Following the 1987 Loughgall ambush, in which eight IRA members and one civilian were killed in a British Army operation aimed at preventing the IRA trying to blow up a police station, he attended a commemoration by the Wolfe Tone Society and"
"26 June 1997, aged 45, Ahern became the youngest ever Taoiseach. The election of Tony Blair in Britain gave renewed hope of an agreement for peace in Northern Ireland, an issue that has traditionally always been an aspiration of Irish Governments. The work of Ahern and his government, as well as that of the relevant power bases in the UK and the US, culminated in the Good Friday Agreement. This agreement was signed by politicians from the Republic, supported by the opposition and politicians in Britain and Northern Ireland and ratified by the electorate on both sides of the Irish"
"in an agreement between the British and Irish governments on 26 August 1997. The Commission was composed of: Its objective was to facilitate the decommissioning of firearms, ammunition and explosives, by: In the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, the participants reaffirmed their commitment to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations, and confirmed their intention to continue to work constructively and in good faith with the Independent Commission, and to use any influence they may have, to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years following endorsement in referendums North and South of the agreement and in"
"Newtownhamilton bombing The Newtownhamilton bombing was a carbombing carried out by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) on 24 June 1998 in the Armagh border village of Newtownhamilton shortly after the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement by the Irish government, British government Nationalist and Unionist parties as well as parties which represented Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries. The INLA and its political wing the IRSP were opposed to the agreement. The bombing was one of the last actions carried out or claimed by the INLA during the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles The Good Friday Agreement was signed"
"included in the Good Friday Agreement. She was also a signatory to the MacBride Principles for fair employment, and succeeded in galvanising Irish-American opinion to combat the early unpopular reception to the Principles in Northern Ireland. The MacBride Principles were signed into US law in 1998, and harnessed the power of US investment against the practice of religious discrimination in employment in Northern Ireland. Her pivotal role in the Good Friday Agreement led McCormack to subsequently campaign for the implementation of those equality and human rights provisions as key to an understanding of conflict resolution based on the practice of"
"Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity. Since 1995, Mitchell has been active in the Northern Ireland peace process, having served as the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland under President Bill Clinton. He first led a commission that established the principles on non-violence to which all parties in Northern Ireland had to adhere, and then chaired the all-party peace negotiations, which led to the Belfast Peace Agreement signed on Good Friday 1998 (known since as the ""Good Friday Agreement""). Mitchell's personal intervention with the parties was crucial to the success of the talks."
"1990s the British and Irish governments worked with the Northern Ireland parties towards a resolution to ""the Troubles"". Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the Irish government and Northern Ireland Executive have co-operated on a number of policy areas under the North-South Ministerial Council created by the Agreement. Ireland ranks among the top twenty-five wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita, and as the tenth most prosperous country in the world according to The Legatum Prosperity Index 2015. After joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted"
"Good Friday Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, and Black Friday. Members of many Christian denominations, including the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and Reformed traditions, observe Good Friday with fasting and church services. The date of Good Friday varies from one year to the next on both the Gregorian and"
"beatings in detention during interrogations by police. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998 produced a wholesale reorganisation of inter-community, governmental and policing systems, including a power-sharing executive. The bias, and the under-representation of Catholics and nationalists in the RUC led to, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, a fundamental policing review, headed by Chris Patten, a former British Governor of Hong Kong and Conservative Minister under Margaret Thatcher. The review was published in September 1999. It recommended a wholesale reorganisation of policing, with the Royal Ulster Constabulary being replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and"
"creating a united Ireland by peaceful means, ""with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island"". It was approved by referendum on 22 May 1998 and signed into law on 3 June of the same year. The referendum was held on the same day as the referendum on Eighteenth Amendment, which related to ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty. The Government declaration was made on 2 December 1999, bringing the changes to Articles 2 and 3 and certain other parts of the constitution into effect. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 was a"
"Decommissioning in Northern Ireland Decommissioning in Northern Ireland was a process in the Belfast Agreement as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. Under the Belfast Agreement, all paramilitary groups fighting in the Troubles would decommission. Decommissioning was a defining issue in the effort to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland. The Belfast Agreement, or Good Friday Agreement, was signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998 (Good Friday) by the British and Irish governments and endorsed by most Northern Ireland political parties. It contained provisions for a government involving both Catholics and Protestants, whose traditional aspirations, expressed as nationalism on one"
"Belfast Agreement (""Good Friday Agreement"") of 10 April 1998 brought – on 2 December 1999 – a degree of power sharing to Northern Ireland, giving both unionists and nationalists control of limited areas of government. However, both the power-sharing Executive and the elected Assembly were suspended between January and May 2000, and from October 2002 until April 2007, following breakdowns in trust between the political parties involving outstanding issues, including ""decommissioning"" of paramilitary weapons, policing reform and the removal of British army bases. In new elections in 2003, the moderate Ulster Unionist and (nationalist) Social Democrat and Labour parties lost"
"Good Friday Agreement, the British–Irish Council, is made up of all of the states and territories of the British Isles. The British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly () predates the British–Irish Council and was established in 1990. Originally it comprised 25 members of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament, and 25 members of the parliament of the United Kingdom, with the purpose of building mutual understanding between members of both legislatures. Since then the role and scope of the body has been expanded to include representatives from the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the States of Jersey, the"
"Gerry Kelly Gerard ""Gerry"" Kelly (born 5 April 1953) is an Irish republican politician and former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who played a leading role in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. He is currently a member of Sinn Féin's Ard Chomhairle (National Executive) and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for North Belfast. Kelly was born in the lower Falls Road, Belfast in 1953, one of 11 siblings. He was educated at St Finian's Primary School, Falls Road area, and later at St Peter's Secondary School in Britton's"
"Good Friday closure controversy The Good Friday closure controversy or Good Friday Disagreement refers to the 2010 court case which saw publicans in Limerick, Ireland apply to be exempted from the prohibition on selling alcohol on Good Friday of that year. The case came about following the scheduling of a 2009–10 Celtic League match between Munster and Leinster at Thomond Park in the city on 2 April 2010 which coincided with Good Friday that year. Pubs in Ireland are normally not permitted to open on either Good Friday or Christmas Day. This law, dating from 1927, also originally included Saint"
"Adams, leader of Sinn Féin, the IRA's political arm. In November 1995, Clinton became the first U.S. President to visit Northern Ireland, seeing both the divided communities of Belfast and later famously handshaking Adams, 14 months into an IRA ceasefire during the Troubles. Despite unionist criticism, Clinton used this as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict with London, Dublin, the paramilitaries and the other groups. Clinton went on to play a key role in the peace talks, which eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay"
"Good Friday Agreement in exchange for the complete decommissioning of IRA weaponry, was one of the main goals of the republican political strategy in the region. Since the army wind-down in 2007, security in the area is the sole responsibility of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Senior IRA figures in South Armagh, notably Thomas Murphy, are alleged to have been involved in large-scale smuggling across the Irish border and money-laundering. Other alleged illegal activities involve fraud through embezzlement of agricultural subsidies and false claims of property loss. In 2006, the British and Irish authorities mounted joint operations to clamp"
"on 10 March, and on two British Army bases in South Armagh on 24 March. On 10 April, after two years of intensive negotiations, the Belfast Good Friday Agreement was signed. Further mortars were launched at RUC bases in Belfast on 4 May and Belleek on 9 May, but missed their targets. On 22 May, referendums on the Agreement were held in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the vote was 71% in favour, while in the Republic the vote was 94% in favour. On 24 June, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) detonated a car"
"Ireland. Northern Ireland has also, in the past, often been a source of tension between the Irish Government and the government of the United Kingdom. To find a solution to the Troubles the Irish Government became a partner in the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. While Sinn Féin have long organised in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, Fianna Fáil have recently opened a ""cumann"" (branch) in Derry and begun recruiting members at Queen's University, Belfast although both are extremely small. Under the Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement) and Article 3 of the constitution a North-South"
"these were held in 1999. Blair attempted to continue peace negotiations in Northern Ireland by offering the creation of a regional parliament and government. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was made, which allowed for a 108-member elected assembly and a power-sharing arrangement between nationalists and unionists. Blair was personally involved in these negotiations. The Fabian Society was a forum for New Labour ideas and for critical approaches from across the party. The most significant Fabian contribution to Labour's policy agenda in government was Ed Balls's 1992 pamphlet, advocating Bank of England independence. After the United States strikes on Afghanistan"
"Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland The Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1998 (previously bill no. 24 of 1998) is an amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which permitted the state to be bound by the Good Friday Agreement and enabled the establishment of shared political institutions between Ireland and Northern Ireland. It also provided a mechanism for a further amendment to the Constitution upon a declaration by the government on the implementation of the Agreement, most notably by changing Articles 2 and 3 from an irredentist claim on the whole island of Ireland to an aspiration towards"